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entitled 'State Department: Targets for Hiring, Filling Vacancies
Overseas Being Met, but Gaps Remain in Hard-to-Learn Languages' which
was released on November 19, 2003.
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Report to Congressional Requesters:
November 2003:
STATE DEPARTMENT:
Targets for Hiring, Filling Vacancies Overseas Being Met, but Gaps
Remain in Hard-to-Learn Languages:
[Hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-139] GAO-04-139:
GAO Highlights:
Highlights of GAO-04-139, a report to congressional requesters
Why GAO Did This Study:
During the 1990s, the State Department lost more people than it hired.
The resultant shortfalls in the number and skills of Foreign Service
officers have endangered U.S. diplomatic readiness. Furthermore,
recent studies, including several by GAO, have questioned whether
State’s recruitment system identifies people with the appropriate
skills and whether State is assigning officers with specialized
skills, such as the ability to speak a difficult language, to
positions where they can be utilized.
GAO was asked to review State’s processes for determining the number
and skills of junior officers the department needs and to determine
whether it is hiring and assigning officers with the general skills to
carry out foreign policy overseas. GAO was also asked to examine the
challenges State still needs to address, especially regarding
officers’ foreign language skills.
What GAO Found:
State used critical elements of workforce planning to identify the
number of junior officers it needs to hire within the next 5 to 10
years. State implemented key elements of workforce planning, including
setting strategic direction and goals, identifying gaps in its
workforce, and developing strategies to address these gaps. State’s
analysis showed that it had a deficit of 386 positions, mainly at the
mid level, and in 2001, State launched a $197 million plan to address
the gaps. State has met its 2002 to 2003 hiring targets for junior
officers and is filling overseas positions with junior officers with
the general skills and competencies required to do their job well.
However, State officials said it will take up to 10 years to hire and
promote junior officers in sufficient numbers to significantly
decrease the shortage of mid-level officers.
While State is able to fill overseas positions with junior officers
who have the necessary general skills, the department continues to
face challenges filling the gaps in staff with proficiency in certain
hard-to-learn languages, such as Arabic and Chinese. State has
implemented a plan to target applicants who speak these difficult
languages. However, this plan does not include numeric goals, and
State has collected limited data to assess the effectiveness of its
efforts. Other challenges include new officers’ public diplomacy
skills and training in this area, increased supervisory and on-the job
requirements when State assigns junior officers to positions above
their experience level, and the impact of rotational assignments on
junior officers’ performance and managers’ time.
What GAO Recommends:
GAO is recommending that the Secretary of State collect and maintain
data on the effectiveness of the department’s efforts to address
continuing gaps in officers with proficiency in certain hard-to-learn
languages. State generally agreed with our findings and observations,
but did not completely address our recommendations.
www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-139.
To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click
on the link above. For more information, contact Jess Ford at (202)
512-4268 or fordj@gao.gov.
[End of section]
Contents:
Letter:
Results in Brief:
Background:
State Uses Critical Elements of Workforce Planning and Is Hiring and
Assigning Officers Overseas with the Necessary General Skills:
Key Challenges Include Gaps in Certain Foreign Languages:
Conclusions:
Recommendations for Executive Action:
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
Appendixes:
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology:
Appendix II: Comments from the Department of State:
GAO Comments:
Appendix III: GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments:
GAO Contacts:
Acknowledgments:
Tables:
Table 1: Number of Applicants Taking and Passing the Written and Oral
Exams in Fiscal Years 2001, 2002, and 2003:
Table 2: Foreign Service Generalists' Surplus/Deficits across Career
Tracks as of March 2003:
Table 3: State Department Hiring Targets and Actual Hiring for Foreign
Service Generalists, Fiscal Years 2002-2004:
Figures:
Figure 1: Critical Elements of Workforce Planning:
Figure 2: Number of New Hires with Working Proficiency in a Hard
Language and Number of New Hires with Less than Working Proficiency in
a Hard Language:
Figure 3: New Hires with Hard Language Ability as a Percentage of New
Foreign Service Generalists:
Figure 4: Assignment Information for New Hires with Hard Language
Ability in Fiscal Year 2001:
Abbreviations:
AFSERS: Automated Foreign Service Examination and Registry System:
BEX: Board of Examiners:
DRI: Diplomatic Readiness Initiative:
FSI: Foreign Service Institute:
GEMS: Global Employment Management System:
MRV: machine-readable visa:
STMS: Student Training Management System:
Letter November 19, 2003:
The Honorable Christopher Shays:
Chairman, Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and
International Relations:
Committee on Government Reform:
House of Representatives:
The Honorable Vic Snyder:
House of Representatives:
In 2001 the Department of State launched a 3-year, $197.5 million
initiative to recruit, hire, train, and deploy the right people to
carry out U.S. foreign policy. Under the initiative, State plans to
hire more than 600 new Foreign Service officers above attrition--the
department's largest expansion in years. The initiative was designed to
address several problems, including shortfalls in the number and skills
of Foreign Service officers at the mid level that the department said
endanger U.S. diplomatic readiness.[Footnote 1] During the 1990s, State
lost more people than it hired due to budget cuts. Furthermore, recent
studies, including several conducted by GAO,[Footnote 2] have
questioned whether the State Department's recruitment system identifies
people with the appropriate skills and whether the assignment process
places officers with specialized skills, such as the ability to speak a
difficult language, in positions where they can be utilized.
To determine whether the State Department is hiring the right people
and assigning them to jobs where they can fully use their skills, you
asked us to review State's system for recruiting and assigning new
Foreign Service officers. In this report we (1) discuss State's
processes for determining the number and skills of junior officers it
needs during the next 5 to 10 years and whether it is hiring and
assigning officers with the general skills to
meet the needs of overseas posts[Footnote 3] and (2) examine the
challenges State still needs to address, especially regarding officers'
foreign language skills.
To conduct our review, we examined planning documents and information
related to State's processes for recruiting and assigning Foreign
Service officers. We met with officials from State's Office of Career
Development and Assignments; the Office of Recruitment, Examination,
and Employment; the Foreign Service Institute; and the Diplomatic
Readiness Task Force. In addition, we met with officials in all of
State's regional bureaus and in the Bureau of Consular Affairs. We also
conducted fieldwork in Mexico City and Moscow and interviewed selected
officials from five U.S. embassies in Africa; this work included
interviews with junior Foreign Service officers. We chose Mexico City
and Moscow for our fieldwork because of the large number of junior
officers assigned to those posts. We chose the embassies in Africa to
obtain the opinions of Foreign Service officers at small and hard-to-
fill posts. For further information on our scope and methodology, see
appendix I.
Results in Brief:
State used critical elements of workforce planning to identify the
number of junior officers it needs to hire within the next 5 to 10
years and is hiring and assigning officers overseas with the general
skills, such as oral and written communication, to do the job. State
implemented key elements of workforce planning, including setting
strategic direction and goals, identifying gaps in its workforce, and
developing strategies to address these gaps. In determining the skills
it needs, State's 2001 analysis--which focused on five career
tracks[Footnote 4]--showed that it needed 386 new positions, mainly at
the mid level. State determined it needed to hire and train about 623
new Foreign Service officers above attrition through fiscal year 2004
to address the shortages and have sufficient staff for other purposes,
such as to allow employees to seamlessly rotate in and out of positions
abroad and to support necessary training in languages and other areas.
In 2001, State began implementing a plan to address these shortfalls
and has met its 2002 to 2003 targets for hiring junior officers in all
five of its career tracks. However, based on its projected attrition
and hiring, State anticipates that it will take up to 10 years to hire
and promote junior officers in sufficient numbers to eliminate the
shortage of mid-level officers in the various career tracks. Nearly
every official with whom GAO spoke said that State was hiring and
filling overseas positions with new Foreign Service junior officers
with the general skills and competencies[Footnote 5] required to do
their jobs well.
State continues to face challenges filling the gaps in staff with
proficiency in certain hard-to-learn languages,[Footnote 6] as well as
challenges in several other areas. State officials at headquarters and
overseas have stated that the department does not have enough Foreign
Service officers with hard language skills, which has adversely
affected State operations. State is currently seeking sufficient staff
to support training in languages as needed. In addition, it has
implemented a plan to target applicants for hiring who speak certain
languages to increase the number of hard language speakers. However,
this plan does not include numeric goals, and State has collected
limited data to assess the effectiveness of its efforts. Several
overseas post officials and new officers at the U.S. embassy in Moscow
told us they were concerned that some junior officers lack sufficient
training in languages considered hard to learn, thus hindering their
ability to do their jobs effectively. State is now increasing the
amount of language training to junior officers studying hard-to-learn
languages. Other concerns regarding new Foreign Service officers
included their lack of public diplomacy experience and insufficient
training in this area, increased supervisory and on-the job
requirements when State assigns junior officers to positions above
their experience level, and rotational assignments that do not give
participants enough time to learn their jobs and thus burden managers.
To address some of these concerns, State has extended the length of
public diplomacy training and is reviewing the practice of rotational
assignments.
This report recommends that the Secretary of State collect and maintain
data on the effectiveness of State's efforts to address language gaps.
State should use these data to, among other things, report on filling
such gaps through its outreach efforts to recruit more junior officers
with hard language skills and its pilot programs to increase their
training in these languages. State should also explore additional
opportunities to maximize assignment of junior officers with skills in
these languages to overseas posts where they can use these languages.
In commenting on a draft of this report, the State Department generally
agreed with the report's findings and observations and said that it is
already addressing the first part of our recommendation. However, we do
not believe that State is addressing this issue, because the data that
State collects do not show the number of individuals it hires as a
direct result of its outreach efforts. State did not completely address
the second part of our recommendation, but stated that our approach,
which focused on six specific languages, was too narrow. We disagree
with State's assessment. We focused on the six languages because of
their strategic importance and findings from previous GAO reports that
found that lack of staff with skills in some of these languages has
hindered diplomatic readiness.
Background:
The State Department advances U.S. national interests through
diplomatic relations with 163 countries at 263 posts worldwide. About
5,900 Foreign Service generalists stationed overseas and at State
headquarters perform much of this work. To become a Foreign Service
officer, an individual must be an American citizen between 20 and 59
years old on the date of the written examination; pass a written and
oral examination; be able to obtain security and medical clearances;
and be available for worldwide assignment, including in Washington,
D.C.
State recruits and hires candidates by administering a written and oral
exam to individuals interested in becoming Foreign Service officers.
The general skills identified by the department and the exams, which
test for those skills, were validated during a 1997 to 1998 job
analysis conducted by State employees and outside contractors.
According to State officials and consultants, the results of the
analysis should be valid for 10 years. In addition, State has updated
the exam to reflect changing needs. For example, it added a section on
management skills to the Foreign Service written exam to identify more
candidates with knowledge useful in this career track. Moreover, the
Board of Examiners reviews the exam annually, as required by the
Foreign Service Act.
The written exam tests for knowledge of 36 topics such as world
historical events, geography, basic economic principles and statistics,
and basic management principles. Applicants registering for the written
exam can self-declare foreign languages spoken and must select a career
track or cone. There are five from which to choose: management,
consular, economic, political, and public diplomacy. The oral exam
assesses a candidate for 13 general skills or competencies: written
communication, oral communication, information integration and
analysis, planning and organizing, judgment, resourcefulness,
initiative and leadership, working with others, experience and
motivation, composure, objectivity and integrity, cultural
adaptability, and quantitative analysis. State does not test for
language proficiency as a requirement for employment. Table 1 shows the
number of applicants taking and passing the written and oral exams in
fiscal years 2001 through 2003.
Table 1: Number of Applicants Taking and Passing the Written and Oral
Exams in Fiscal Years 2001, 2002, and 2003:
Year: 2001: Number of applicants who took written exam: 12,912; Number
who passed written exam: 3,871; Number of applicants who took
oral exam: 1,668; Number who passed oral exam: 727.
Year: 2002: Number of applicants who took written exam: 31,442; Number
who passed written exam: 9,258; Number of applicants who took
oral exam: 6,295; Number who passed oral exam:
1,547.
Year: 2003: Number of applicants who took written exam: 20,342; Number
who passed written exam: 3,274; Number of applicants who took oral
exam: N.A.; Number who passed oral exam: N.A.
Source: Department of State.
[End of table]
After a candidate passes both the written and oral exams, he or she is
placed on a register of eligible hires and will remain there for up to
18 months or until being placed in an initial training, or A-100,
class, according to State officials. There are five separate registers,
one for each career track or cone, which rank candidates according to
their scores on the oral assessment. To increase the chances that
candidates on the register who have language skills are hired, a
passing score on an optional telephonic assessment of a candidate's
foreign language skills will add points to the individual's final
score. Each register has a minimum cutoff point, which dictates an
immediate conditional offer of employment to those candidates who
receive that score on their oral exam. The cutoff points for receiving
an immediate conditional offer vary according to each register.
Registers with more candidates interested in serving in that career
track have higher cutoff points.
Each A-100 class consists of between 45 and 90 junior Foreign Service
officers who will be assigned as entry-level Foreign Service personnel
in overseas or domestic posts. During training, junior officers are
required to bid on a list of available jobs from which State's Entry
Level Division will assign them to an overseas post. The officers
receive language and job-specific training after they receive their
assignments.
State Uses Critical Elements of Workforce Planning and Is Hiring and
Assigning Officers Overseas with the Necessary General Skills:
State used critical elements of workforce planning to identify Foreign
Service officer staffing and skill gaps within the next 5 to 10 years.
The department determined that it needed to hire 623 new Foreign
Service generalists above attrition hiring; to accomplish this, in 2001
it developed a 3-year hiring plan. The department has met its hiring
targets for fiscal years 2002 and 2003 and is ready to implement 2004
hiring pending congressional funding. However, officials we interviewed
projected that it would take up to 10 years to hire and promote enough
junior officers to eliminate the shortfalls at the mid level. Almost
all officials we interviewed said State has hired and was in the
process of filling overseas positions with very talented and capable
junior officers with the general skills and competencies required to do
their jobs well.
State Used Critical Elements of Workforce Planning:
State used critical elements of workforce planning, which include (1)
setting strategic direction, (2) analyzing the workforce to determine
if staffing and skill gaps exist, (3) developing workforce strategies
to fill the gaps, and (4) evaluating the strategies and making needed
revisions to ensure that strategies work as intended. Involving various
staff (from top to bottom) is important across all the critical
elements. (See fig. 1.):
Figure 1: Critical Elements of Workforce Planning:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
State Has Set Strategic Direction:
Before developing a workforce plan, an agency first needs to set
strategic direction and program goals. State has done this by
implementing a strategic plan, which contains 12 strategic goals and 44
performance goals. Overseas posts participate in the planning process
by developing mission program plans that link their resource (including
staffing) requests to the strategic goals. The overseas posts submit
their plans to the regional bureaus in Washington, D.C. After review
and prioritization, the regional bureaus incorporate elements from the
mission plans into bureau performance plans, based on policy priorities
and initiatives that are relevant to the strategic and performance
goals. State has developed an overseas staffing model, which it uses to
determine staffing requirements and allocate personnel resources
worldwide. The model is linked to State's strategic goals through the
mission program planning process.
State Has Analyzed Its Workforce to Identify Gaps:
In 2001, State analyzed its workforce to identify staffing and skill
gaps in the Foreign Service. State's overseas staffing model served as
the basis for the analysis, which is a key component of workforce
planning. The staffing model, which State updates biennially, measures
Foreign Service staffing needs overseas by the five career tracks or
"cones." The model places posts into categories by size and the post's
primary function and determines how many positions the post needs for
each career track based on certain workload factors. For example, the
model determines the number of administrative positions a post requires
based on the number of Americans at the post and such factors as the
level of service provided to each U.S. government agency at the post,
the number of housing units, and the number of visitors.
To identify its Foreign Service staffing needs, State compared the
number of officers it had in each career track with the total number of
positions to be filled, including new overseas positions required
according to post workload categories projected by the staffing model.
State used these analyses in determining total staffing needs. State's
analysis considered the level of experience needed for the officers by
grade level.[Footnote 7]
In 2001, State determined that it needed 623 new Foreign Service
generalists to eliminate its mid-level Foreign Service staffing and
skills shortfall. This number includes the 386 overseas positions
identified by the overseas staffing model, as well as additional staff
needed to manage crises; permit employees to step out of assignment
rotation to receive training, including language training; allow
employees to seamlessly rotate in and out of positions abroad; allow
State to meet domestic responsibilities and fully staff the required
details to other U.S. government agencies and offices; and provide
employees with training in languages, leadership and management, and
tradecraft, such as consular duties. This deficit affected all grade
levels, with the majority at the mid level, according to State
officials.
As of March 2003, State had a combined mid-level deficit of 353
officers in all career tracks. The deficits also included domestic
positions, such as desk officers, that Foreign Service officers occupy
when they are assigned to headquarters. The largest deficit for these
positions is in the public diplomacy career track, due mainly to
deficits inherited from the U.S. Information Agency, which was folded
into the State Department in 1999.
Table 2 shows the staffing deficits and surpluses for Foreign Service
generalists by career track.
Table 2: Foreign Service Generalists' Surplus/Deficits across Career
Tracks as of March 2003:
Grade Level: Senior Level; Management: MC; Management: -14; Consular:
3; Economic: 7; Political: 31; Public: diplomacy: -14; Total surplus/
deficit: 13; Surplus/deficit: by grade level: ; ; ; 49.
Management: OC; Management: -7; Consular: 3; Economic: 7; Political:
33; Public: diplomacy: -12; Total surplus/deficit: 24.
Management: 01; Management: -10; Consular: 34; Economic: 25; Political:
75; Public: diplomacy: -112; Total surplus/deficit: 12.
Grade Level: Mid Level; Management: 02; Management: 0; Consular: 27;
Economic: -2; Political: 39; Public: diplomacy: -161; Total surplus/
deficit: -97; Surplus/deficit: by grade level: -353.
Management: 03; Management: -41; Consular: -97; Economic: -63;
Political: -26; Public: diplomacy: -29; Total surplus/deficit: -256.
Grade Level: Junior Level; Management: 04[A]; Management: 147;
Consular: -395[B]; Economic: 85; Political: 53; Public: diplomacy: 70;
Total surplus/deficit: -40; Surplus/deficit: by grade level: -40.
Total; Management: 75; Consular: -425; Economic: 59;
Political: 205; Public: diplomacy: -258; Total surplus/deficit: -344.
Source: Department of State.
[A] FS 05 and FS 06 are training positions that are not counted against
the deficit.
[B] This number is not a true deficit because junior officers in all
career tracks perform consular work.
[End of table]
State Developed and Is Implementing Workforce Strategies to Fill the
Gaps:
In 2001, the Secretary of State launched the Diplomatic Readiness
Initiative (DRI), a $197.5 million plan to address the staffing and
skills deficits to ensure diplomatic readiness. This initiative calls
for hiring an additional 1,158 employees over attrition, including 623
Foreign Service generalists, between fiscal years 2002 and
2004.[Footnote 8] This hiring is in addition to the 852 staff needed to
fill gaps created by attrition. State's plans call for the agency to
continue hiring at least 200 officers above attrition through fiscal
year 2005. To accomplish the increased hiring under the DRI, State is
implementing an aggressive recruitment program that incorporates its
traditional recruitment at campuses and job fairs with new methods,
such as an interactive Web site. State's recruitment program is focused
on addressing shortages in specific career tracks. For example, State
is targeting business schools and other appropriate professional
associations to recruit applicants with management skills.
State Has Some Mechanisms for Evaluating Its Plan:
State officials described a few ways in which they evaluate and revise
the agency's planning process. For example, Human Resources personnel
said they frequently adjust the staffing model to ensure that its
different components, such as the promotion, retirement, and attrition
sections, accurately reflect the trends occurring in the Foreign
Service. State also monitors its intake plans. A recruitment committee
meets biweekly to review and adjust State's recruitment and training
plans. As a result of these reviews, the committee may move hiring from
one career track to another or increase training resources to
accommodate the workload. The officials said State also conducts
quarterly reviews of bureau staffing to take into account changing
priorities.
Employee Involvement in Workforce Planning Varies:
Involving employees at all levels and stakeholders in the workforce
planning process is important to encourage support for and
understanding of its outcomes. State's workforce planning process
involves managers at all levels. For example, all 37 bureaus as well as
all overseas posts provide input. Managers at all levels help determine
staffing needs in parts of the organization for mission program plans
and bureau performance plans that are then factored into the overall
plans. Managers at all levels assist in data gathering as well as
assessing and validating the overseas staffing model. Senior
management, including the Deputy Secretary and the Undersecretary for
Management, reviews all bureau performance plans at formal annual
hearings. Budget and human resources analysts also review the bureau
performance plans. Further, employees at varying levels serve on
committees, such as the recruitment committee, involved in workforce
planning. Other nonmanagement employees participate in State's
workforce planning efforts, according to Bureau of Human Resources
officials. For example, they said officers at all levels participated
in the analysis done to validate Foreign Service skill needs, and
junior and mid-level officers at the overseas posts provide data that
are used to develop the mission program plans.
State Has Met Its Hiring Targets but Gaps in Mid-Level Officers Will
Take up to 10 Years to Fill:
State has met its hiring targets for fiscal years 2002 and 2003. (See
table 3.):
:
Table 3: State Department Hiring Targets and Actual Hiring for Foreign
Service Generalists, Fiscal Years 2002-2004:
Fiscal year: Diplomatic Readiness Initiative; 2002: 205; 2003: 209;
Total actual hiring for both years: 414; 2004: (planned): 209; Total:
623.
Fiscal year: Attrition and MRV-funded hiring; 2002: 262; 2003: 259;
Total actual hiring for both years: 521; 2004: (planned): 331; Total:
852.
Fiscal year: Total hiring target; 2002: 467; 2003: 468; Total actual
hiring for both years: 935; 2004: (planned): 540; Total: 1,475.
Fiscal year: Actual hiring; 2002: 467; 2003: 468; Total actual hiring
for both years: 935; 2004: (planned): N.A.; Total: N.A.
Source: Department of State.
[End of table]
State has eliminated staffing deficits at the entry level in all five
of its career tracks, according to officials in State's Office of
Recruitment Examination and Employment. They said there is a sufficient
number of candidates on the list of eligible hires to fill all junior
officer positions coming vacant for fiscal year 2004.
Since 2002 State has hired at over twice the level of attrition. It
plans to hire an additional 209 new Foreign Service
generalists[Footnote 9] in fiscal year 2004 to provide a training
"float" and to ensure that additional officers are available for crisis
management. According to State, it must sustain the personnel "float"
to ensure that training can continue at the appropriate levels. Most of
these positions are new junior officers, who are hired at the entry
level for their career tracks. State's plan is to eventually promote
the junior officers to the mid level in sufficient numbers to eliminate
the current deficit of 353 mid-level officers.
State anticipates that the mid-level gap will be eliminated within the
next 9 to 10 years, based on its attrition and hiring and provided it
receives all DRI allocations through fiscal year 2004. Several officers
said elimination of the mid-level gap depended on State's ability to
promote the junior officers. For example, they said that if State
continues to hire large numbers of junior officers, eventually there
would be a surplus of officers eligible for promotion. If all of these
officers were not promoted quickly, they might leave the Foreign
Service. In addition, a few officials stated that elimination of the
mid-level gap depended on State's ability to continue hiring junior
officers at the current rate. They feared a "feast or famine" situation
in which increased hiring would be followed by years of no hiring.
State officials believe that, due to the current deficit at the mid
level, it will be able to provide adequate promotion opportunities to
satisfy the career expectations of recently hired junior officers as it
eliminates the mid-level deficit. They also believe that to avoid the
feast or famine situation it will be necessary to protect the personnel
float so that additional officers continue to be available in a crisis.
State Has Hired and Assigned Foreign Service Officers with the General
Skills and Competencies to Do the Job:
Almost all officials we interviewed said State identified and hired
very talented and capable junior officers with the general skills and
competencies, such as written and oral communication, required to do
their jobs well, noting that the examination process was identifying
junior officers with the needed skills. Junior officers said the oral
exam effectively measured the necessary general skills that they use on
their jobs. Many said the group exercise administered during the oral
assessment was a potent tool for assessing a candidate's ability to
lead and work with others. The current version of the oral assessment
allows test-takers to present relevant information about previous work
experience and skills that examiners would consider important. Junior
officers we interviewed who had taken the oral exam twice--first when
it did not allow candidates to present information about their
background and skills and a second time when it did--said the latter
version of the exam was an improvement in the oral assessment. Opinions
about the effectiveness of the written exam to measure the same
aptitude were mixed. Junior officers said the section of the written
exam that focused on biographical, or personal, data did not identify
skills needed to perform effectively. However, some junior officers
said the written exam worked effectively as a knowledge screen for
candidates to ensure that those hired had the broad intellectual skills
needed for the job.
State is filling overseas positions with new officers who have the
general skills that State requires, according to headquarters and
overseas officials with whom we spoke. Officials said that overall, the
assignment process was accomplishing its goals and that State was
assigning junior officers with the appropriate skills and eliminating
junior officer vacancies. Several overseas U.S. officials in Mexico
City and Moscow cited interpersonal skills as particularly important
and stated that the junior officers assigned to their posts had those
skills. For example, one official said the number of junior officers
entering the Foreign Service with excellent interpersonal skills had
increased dramatically in the past 3 or 4 years. An official at a small
hardship post in Africa stated that flexibility and the ability to
handle a variety of tasks were critical skills and that State carefully
selected the junior officers assigned to his post. Several officers in
Mexico City and Moscow commented on State's success at filling
positions in general and noted that there were no vacant positions in
their sections.
Junior Officers Are Pleased with Assignment Process:
Junior officers generally spoke favorably about how State assigned them
to their posts. They said they were pleased with the process because it
allowed them to choose their top 25 jobs from an available list, and
several junior officers told us they were assigned to one of their top
locations. Some junior officers stated that although State did not
necessarily take their previous work experience into account when
assigning them to a post, they sometimes had opportunities to use their
experience once they arrived overseas. For example, several junior
officers said their legal backgrounds helped them perform their
consular duties. Another junior officer commented that his past Army
leadership and experience with the press directly related to his public
diplomacy position.
The career development officers who assign junior officers to overseas
posts stated that they are familiar with junior officers' background
and work experience and may consider them when they make assignments.
However, they explained that the ultimate purpose of the assignment
process to meet the needs of the Foreign Service and to prepare junior
officers for tenure. To be tenured, the officers have to reach required
levels of proficiency in foreign languages and demonstrate core
competencies that indicate their ability to have a successful career in
the Foreign Service. Thus, these criteria guide junior officers'
assignments.
Key Challenges Include Gaps in Certain Foreign Languages:
State still faces challenges in recruiting, hiring, assigning, and
training officers who are proficient in hard-to-learn languages. State
officials at headquarters and overseas have stated that the department
does not have enough Foreign Service officers with hard language
skills. Three recent GAO reports also cited language skill gaps that
adversely affected department operations.[Footnote 10] State has
acknowledged that it needs more staff with skills in certain hard
languages and, in addition to its efforts to ensure adequate training
in foreign languages, has begun an effort to recruit officers with hard
language skills. However, State does not have data that link its
outreach efforts to the number of people hired with skills in hard
languages. In addition to the language issue, State officials and some
junior officers expressed other concerns, including the junior
officers' public diplomacy skills, supervision, and on-the-job training
requirements, as well as issues related to rotational positions.
State Has Skill Gaps in Certain Hard Languages:
Overseas post officials and several new officers told us that some
junior officers who are assigned to hard language posts lack sufficient
training in these languages. For example, in 2002, junior officers in
Moscow sent a cable to State stating that they had not received
sufficient language training to do their jobs effectively, which was
weakening the post's diplomatic readiness. The junior officers, as well
as most senior officials at this post, said that many of the junior
officers have difficulty participating in high-level political
meetings--which significantly impedes the political section's work--
and interviewing visa applicants because they lack language
proficiency. The latter is of particular concern as the department
moves toward heavier reliance on interviewing applicants as a basis for
determining whether they will receive a visa. While State classified
the junior officer positions as requiring level-2 proficiency in
speaking, post management and junior officers said they need a level-3
proficiency to perform their jobs effectively.[Footnote 11]
Our past work has also shown gaps in the numbers of officers with
proficiency in certain hard languages. In September 2003, we reported
that about 21 percent of the public diplomacy officers posted overseas
in language designated positions have not attained the level of
language speaking proficiency required for their positions, hampering
their ability to engage with foreign publics.[Footnote 12] In January
2002 we reported that State had not filled all of its positions
requiring foreign language skills, and we noted that lack of staff with
foreign language skills had weakened the fight against international
terrorism and resulted in less effective representation
of U.S. interest overseas.[Footnote 13] We cited similar shortages
during our review of staffing at certain hard-to-fill posts.[Footnote
14] We reported that some new junior officers did not meet the minimum
language proficiency requirements of the positions to which they were
assigned in several countries of strategic importance to the United
States, including China, Saudi Arabia, and Ukraine.
State's Effort to Address Critical Languages Lacks Numerical Targets,
Data on Effectiveness:
State has acknowledged that it has gaps in the number of officers
proficient in certain hard languages, but its workforce planning does
not identify the number of officers to hire with those skills.[Footnote
15] The department has further acknowledged that languages are integral
to its work and important to its mission. However, because its officers
are required to do much more than use a foreign language, State's
philosophy is to hire officers with a wide range of skills it believes
are predictors of success in the Foreign Service. It does not hire for
skills that it can train for, such as languages. For example, State
officials have told us that it is easier to train a person with good
diplomatic skills to speak a language than it is to teach a linguist to
be a good diplomat. Therefore, State officials do not believe the
solution to the language skill gap is recruiting aimed only at filling
this gap. According to State, increased staffing under the DRI will
solve the problem. Nevertheless, the department has implemented efforts
to identify candidates for the Foreign Service with hard language
skills.
State has begun an effort to recruit more speakers of difficult
languages. Since the DRI in 2001, the department has extended its
outreach efforts by targeting professional associations, such as the
American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages and the Modern
Language Association, and specific universities and colleges that
produce graduates with ability in hard languages. While State does
track the language skills of its new hires, it has not established
numerical targets for the number of individuals with hard language
ability it aims to hire. Nor could it provide current or historical
data showing the number of individuals it hired as a direct result of
targeted outreach efforts at these professional associations and
schools.
While State has not set targets, our analysis of data from State's
Foreign Service Institute (FSI) on the number of junior officers who
took a language proficiency test after they were hired indicates that
the number of Foreign Service officers with ability in hard languages
has increased since 2001, with State hiring 51 Foreign Service
generalists with these skills[Footnote 16] in fiscal year 2001, 74 in
2002, and 115 in 2003. While these figures include new hires with a
broad range of hard language skills, a subset of these hires speaks
hard languages at a more advanced skill level. New hires in this
subgroup have speaking skills ranging from a minimum level of 2, or
what State refers to as "limited working proficiency," to a level of 5-
-equivalent to skills a native speaker would possess.[Footnote 17] The
number of these officers has also increased from fiscal year 2001 to
2003. State hired 31, 43, and 78 Foreign Service generalists who spoke
languages at a level of working proficiency or higher from 2001 through
2003, respectively. (See fig. 2.):
Figure 2: Number of New Hires with Working Proficiency in a Hard
Language[Footnote 18] and Number of New Hires with Less than Working
Proficiency in a Hard Language:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
State could not provide data to demonstrate how many junior officers
with hard language skills were hired as a result of targeted
recruitment. Thus it is unclear whether the increase is the result of
expanded outreach or a steep increase in hiring of junior officers.
According to our analysis, the number of new Foreign Service
generalists with hard language ability as a percentage of the total
population of new hires has fluctuated since 2001 when it was 22
percent, compared with 16 percent and 25 percent in 2002 and 2003,
respectively. (See fig. 3.):
Figure 3: New Hires with Hard Language Ability as a Percentage of New
Foreign Service Generalists:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
Telephonic Assessment of Candidates with Language Skills:
In addition to outreach efforts, State uses a telephonic assessment--
the Board of Examiners (BEX) test--to provide candidates with foreign
language skills a competitive advantage in the hiring process,
according to State officials. Candidates who have passed the written
and oral exams can take the telephone test in their language of choice.
If they pass, they are assigned additional points to their oral
assessment score. The purpose of this tool is to raise the candidates'
oral assessment scores sufficiently for them to receive an immediate
offer of employment.
However, our analysis of 102 individuals who passed the telephonic
assessment in Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or Russian in fiscal
year 2003 shows that, as of October 2003, only 32 received and accepted
offers from the Foreign Service and were placed in A-100 training.
Twenty-seven individuals are awaiting security or medical clearances; 6
are no longer junior officer candidates because they failed their
security or medical clearances, withdrew their applications, or their
candidate eligibility expired; and 37 remain on the Foreign Service
register. The 37 individuals in the latter category scored well enough
to pass the oral assessment; however, the additional points they
received from passing the BEX assessment were not sufficient for them
to receive a job offer.[Footnote 19] Moreover, the State Department
does not provide any additional points for BEX testees with hard
languages versus other languages. However, State officials said the
department is revising this system.
Junior Officers with Hard Language Skills Are Not Always Placed to Use
Them:
Although State is trying to increase the number of officers with hard
language skills, it does not necessarily assign new hires to posts
where they can use those skills during their first two tours.[Footnote
20] We analyzed the assignment of 31 new officers with hard language
ability[Footnote 21] to determine if during their first two tours they
were assigned to a post where they could use their language skills.
According to our analysis, 45 percent of new hires with hard language
ability were deployed to a post where they could use their language
skills during their first two tours. For the 55 percent of junior
officers who did not use their hard language skills during their first
two tours, 20 percent were assigned to a post where they could use
other foreign language skills they had acquired and 35 percent were
assigned to posts that required foreign language training. (See fig.
4.):
Figure 4: Assignment Information for New Hires with Hard Language
Ability in Fiscal Year 2001:
[See PDF for image]
Note: As of November 2003, State could provide first and second tour
information for only 31 of the 51 officers with hard language ability
hired in fiscal year 2001. State has not yet assigned the remaining 20
officers to their second tours.
[End of figure]
It is even less likely that officers will be assigned to hard language
posts during their first tour. Our analysis of first tour officers with
hard language ability shows that 24 percent of these officers were
immediately deployed in fiscal year 2001 to posts where they could use
those skills and 32 percent in fiscal year 2002 and 28 percent in
fiscal year 2003. The vast majority of the new hires were immediately
deployed to posts where other foreign languages were spoken or to
English-speaking posts.
The ability to speak a difficult language is one of many factors
influencing a junior officer's assignment to an overseas post. As a
practical matter, there may not be openings at particular hard-language
posts at the same time junior officers are being assigned to their
first and second tours. The requirements for tenure, which include a
variety of regions and jobs for junior officers to prepare them for
careers as Foreign Service generalists, are also a major consideration.
The emphasis on career development and achieving tenure sometimes
limits the department's ability to train and deploy a sufficient number
of officers with the needed training in hard languages to do their
jobs, according to several headquarters officials. For example,
officials in one of State's geographic bureaus stated that some hard
languages require a level-2 speaking proficiency, for which officers
may get from 24 to 26 weeks of language training. However, if junior
officers spend a longer period of time in training, they could be at a
disadvantage for tenure at the first year of eligibility because they
would have a narrower range of on-the-job experiences on which tenure
decisions are based. Security requirements are also a consideration
when assigning junior officers overseas. According to State officials,
junior officers with hard language skills are sometimes precluded from
serving at a post where they can use their hard language skills for
diplomatic security reasons, such as having an immediate family member
or close ties with individuals in a country. In fiscal year 2003, 8
percent, or 38 of the 468 new Foreign Service generalists State hired,
were precluded from serving at hard language posts for security
reasons. However, because of Privacy Act restrictions and some
unavailable data, State could only provide partial information about
the foreign language skills of these new hires. As a result, we are
unable to determine how many of these preclusions were also hard-
language speakers.
Our analysis was limited to an officer's first two tours. State
officials noted that when a new hire possesses strong language skills
already, the employee and department may consciously use the first two
tours to develop additional skills rather than existing ones. Skills
brought into the Foreign Service are likely to be used later in a
career if not immediately, according to the State officials.
Pilot Programs Under Way to Increase Training:
State has been exploring options to provide additional training in hard
languages for officers. State officials said their efforts to provide
more language training while officers are in Washington at the FSI are
affected by a tax regulation that limits the time officers can spend in
temporary duty status to one year before they have to pay federal taxes
on their per diem. To alleviate this situation, State is developing
pilot programs to provide some officers with additional training in
hard languages by sending them to training overseas. In one such pilot,
an officer would spend a year studying Arabic at the FSI field school
in Tunis prior to being sent to an Arabic-speaking post, according to
an official of the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. Under another pilot,
junior officers assigned to Moscow are taking an immersion course in
Russia following their initial language training in Washington.
Some Officials Say On-the-Job Training in Public Diplomacy Is
Insufficient:
In addition to the hard-language issues, some overseas officials
expressed concern about the lack of on-the-job training opportunities
for junior public diplomacy officers, citing overseas training as the
single most important factor in building these officers' skills and
positioning them to succeed in public diplomacy. The FSI's training did
not include grant writing, program management, and basic supervisory
skills, they said, and was not a viable substitute for overseas
training. Moreover, about 58 percent of the officers responding to a
GAO survey reported that the amount of time available for public
diplomacy training was inadequate.[Footnote 22] Furthermore, State's
Inspector General reported that public affairs officers in Africa were
often first-tour or entry-level officers with no prior public diplomacy
experience and as such, their mistakes in dealing with the media have
embarrassed the post.[Footnote 23] First-tour officers have also
displayed poor judgment by not seeking advice from experienced local
staff, the IG said. FSI has revised its public diplomacy training to
address some of these issues. As of September 2003, public diplomacy
officers are receiving from 9 to 19 weeks of training (depending upon
the duties of their assignment) before they are sent to a post.
Previously they received 3 weeks of training. State officials said the
success of this effort depends on State's ability to hire sufficient
staff for a training float that would allow officers time to take the
training.
Placement in Positions Traditionally Held by Mid-Level Officers Yields
Mixed Results:
Several post officials said State's practice of filling positions
traditionally held by mid-level officers with junior officers and
assigning inexperienced junior officers to small posts where they would
have increased responsibilities worked well. However, others expressed
concern because junior officers in these positions require increased
supervision and on-the-job training.
Benefits Cited at Smaller Posts, Hardship Posts:
State has assigned a number of junior officers--new DRI hires--to
positions formerly held by mid-level officers to fill unmet needs at
that level. For fiscal years 2002 to 2003, 96 mid-level positions were
downgraded to junior-level positions after consultations with posts,
regional bureaus, and the Bureau of Human Resources. Career development
officers explained that such positions have been restructured so that
with more supervision and revised portfolios, junior officers should be
able to do the work. Smaller posts often have very few American staff,
and junior officers are frequently responsible for work in more than
one career track. For example, a junior officer with whom we spoke at a
small post in Africa was responsible for the political and economic
sections and served as backup for the consular section.
According to some officials, junior officers assigned to some smaller
posts have been very qualified and have helped alleviate the burden of
staffing at hardship posts. Several officials with whom we spoke at
three embassies reported positive experiences with junior officers in
positions that required more responsibility. Moreover, junior officers
serving at smaller hardship posts can gain a multitude of Foreign
Service experiences not available to other officers.
Assignments Require More Supervision, On-the-Job Training:
Some post officials, however, noted that such assignments require more
supervision and on-the-job training. Supervision is a particular issue
at smaller posts where there may be few or no mid-level officers.
According to several overseas officials, this situation creates a
burden for the senior-level officers who have to mentor and provide on-
the-job training as well as serve as backup for other jobs at the
mission and manage the mission. For example, an official at one small
African post said a mid-level supervisor would normally be responsible
for training a junior officer to write cables. Because there are no
mid-level officers to provide the training, more senior officials must
provide it, leaving them less time to manage the embassy.
One overseas embassy official told us a junior officer was having
difficulty serving in a mid-level position at a small constituent post
where the officer had very little training and supervision. Officials
explained that while the position had been designated as a junior
officer position, it still required an individual with significant
related experience. Unfortunately, the junior officer assigned to this
position did not have the requisite work experience or knowledge.
Another official said that placing junior officers in positions
formerly held by mid-level officers was not achieving the same results
as hiring people with directly related management experience.
Furthermore, State's Inspector General reported that assigning
inexperienced junior officers to mid-level consular positions in
African posts with high levels of visa fraud was a serious problem. A
Bureau of Human Resources official stated that this problem should ease
as positions are filled under the DRI. In the meantime, according to
State officials, the bureau tries to fill vacancies in mid-level
consular positions with at least a second-tour officer.
Rotational Positions Have Value for Officers but Do Not Always Serve
Posts' Needs:
State established "rotational" positions that allow some junior
officers to serve one year in one career track and another year in a
different career track--for example, consular and public diplomacy.
Several officials in Mexico City and Moscow said that the rotations
were working well at their embassy and the length of the rotations was
adequate for the junior officers to learn their jobs. Some officials
said rotational assignments could benefit junior officers and the
Foreign Service by increasing officers' knowledge of how an overseas
post operates. One official noted that working in different sections of
the embassy becomes harder as an officer is promoted, so it is
extremely important to have this experience at the junior level.
Other officials, however, said that rotational assignments were not
serving the posts' needs. For example, one official stated that a year
is not enough time for a person to learn the tasks of the job in the
consular section and, as a result, local national employees carry much
of the responsibility in the section. An overseas official stated that
a 1-year consular rotation might not allow the junior officer to get
the same breadth of experience as junior officers who spend 2 years in
the consular section. In addition, State's Inspector General reported
that many consular supervisors said junior officers are not assigned to
consular work long enough to acquire the skills to adjudicate visas
under new performance requirements to improve U.S. border
security.[Footnote 24]
Rotational positions also increase managers' training
responsibilities. As one post official described it, managers have to
"start from scratch" each time the position turns over. Some officials
said the rotational program was hindering productivity in the Foreign
Service because junior officers rotate soon after they master their
current position. These issues led the Inspector General to recommend
discontinuing the practice of assigning junior officers to 1-year
rotational positions in consular sections. The Bureau of Consular
Affairs and the Bureau of Human Resources have decided to continue the
rotational program, according to a Bureau of Human Resources official.
The official stated that the bureau continues to believe the program is
beneficial and said that there are safeguards in place to address the
Inspector General's concerns. For example, the official stated that the
two bureaus have reviewed all of the consular positions and have
identified those that should not be filled as part of a rotation by
first-tour junior officers.
Conclusions:
Critical gaps in the number and skills of Foreign Service staff
endangered State's ability to carry out U.S. foreign policy. The
department has addressed the numeric shortfall through its Diplomatic
Readiness Initiative, which has been successful in expanding the
candidate pool for Foreign Service positions. State has been able to
hire junior officers with the general skills it requires and to fill
overseas positions. However, State continues to face gaps in personnel
who are proficient in speaking languages considered hard to learn. To
address these gaps, State has undertaken outreach efforts to attract
speakers with proficiency in certain hard languages, extended the time
junior officers spend in training, established pilot programs to
develop a cadre of speakers of hard languages, and assigned many junior
officers with skills in hard languages to countries where they can use
those skills. However, it is not clear to what extent these efforts
will help eliminate the gaps, and State has little data to demonstrate
their success. Furthermore, State's process of assigning junior
officers, with its emphasis on achieving tenure, may hinder the
department's ability to take advantage of the hard language skills that
some of its officers have.
Recommendations for Executive Action:
This report recommends that the Secretary of State collect and maintain
data on the effectiveness of State's efforts to address language gaps.
State should use these data to, among other things, report on filling
such gaps through its outreach efforts to recruit more junior officers
with hard language skills and its pilot programs to increase training
in hard-to-learn languages for junior officers. State should also
explore additional opportunities to maximize assignment of junior
officers who have skills in these languages to overseas posts where
they can use these languages.
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
The State Department provided written comments on a draft of this
report. These comments and our response are reprinted in appendix II.
State also provided technical comments, which we have incorporated into
the report as appropriate.
The State Department generally agreed with the report's findings and
observations, but did not completely address our recommendations. State
commented that it is already addressing our recommendation that it
maintain data on its efforts to recruit speakers of hard-to-learn
languages. State said that the department collects and maintains
extensive data to monitor its recruitment efforts. However, State has
not used the data to determine whether its outreach efforts for
increasing the number of hard-language speakers are effective or have
helped decrease the gap in certain languages. State further said that
it is confident that its overall hiring plan will address the language
gaps over the next several years, but the plan does not provide
specific milestones for achieving this goal. We believe State needs to
more specifically link its efforts to its hard language needs. We have
modified our recommendation to make this clearer.
State did not completely address the second part of our recommendation,
but stated that our approach, which focused on six specific languages,
was too narrow. We disagree with State's assessment. We focused on the
six languages because of their strategic importance and findings from
previous GAO reports that lack of staff with skills in some of these
languages has hindered diplomatic readiness. In its comments, State
also overstated a number of our findings, observations, and
conclusions.
:
We are sending copies of this report to appropriate congressional
committees. We are also sending copies of this report to the Secretary
of State. Copies will be made available to others upon request. In
addition, this report will be made available at no charge on the GAO
Web site at [Hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov] http://www.gao.gov.
If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please
contact me on (202) 512-4128. Other GAO contacts and staff
acknowledgments are listed in appendix III.
Jess T. Ford:
Director, International Affairs and Trade:
Signed by Jess T. Ford:
[End of section]
Appendixes:
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology:
To report on State's processes for determining the number and skills of
junior officers it needs during the next 5 to 10 years, we examined
workforce planning documents and data, including the overseas staffing
model.[Footnote 25] We also interviewed officials from State's Resource
Planning and Compensation Division and Office of Resource Management
and Organizational Analysis, Bureau of Human Resources. We reviewed and
analyzed data from the Office of Resource Management and Organizational
Analysis on projected promotions and hiring for fiscal years 2002
through 2007 and the current deficit and surplus of Foreign Service
generalists according to the five career tracks and grade levels. We
also interviewed officials from all six of State's regional bureaus,
the Bureau of Consular Affairs, the Foreign Service Institute (FSI),
and the U.S. embassies in Mexico City and Moscow. We selected these
embassies because they contained the largest number of junior officers.
During our fieldwork, we conducted interviews with senior level, mid-
level, and junior officers.
To determine whether State is hiring and assigning officers with the
general skills to meet the needs of overseas posts, we reviewed
information related to State's recruiting program, including Diplomatic
Readiness recruitment goals and hiring data from 2001 through 2003 and
projected hiring through 2007. We interviewed officials from the Office
of Recruitment, Examination, and Employment; the Office of Career
Development; the Diplomatic Readiness Task Force; all six of State's
regional bureaus; and the Bureau of Consular Affairs. In addition, we
interviewed one of the consultants who helped perform State's 1997 job
analysis---a comprehensive revalidation of the skills tested by the
Foreign Service written and oral exams. We also reviewed the raw data
in the form of survey responses by Foreign Service generalists about
the skills that are most critical to their work, but we did not
evaluate the validity of State's analysis. We interviewed officials,
including junior officers, at the U.S. embassies in Mexico City and
Moscow and supplemented our fieldwork with telephone interviews of
Foreign Service officers at U.S. embassies in Angola, Djibouti, Burkina
Faso, Sierra Leone, and South Africa. We selected the first four
countries to obtain the perspective of officers at small or hard-to-
fill posts. We selected South Africa at the recommendation of a Bureau
of Human Resources official. We also conducted in-person interviews
with junior officers at headquarters.
To examine the challenges State still needs to address, especially
regarding officers with hard-to-learn language skills, we solicited
data from three different State Department databases. We interviewed
State officials who were authorities on each of the three databases and
determined that the data obtained were reliable in accordance with
generally accepted government auditing standards.
* To determine the number of officers with hard language ability hired
in 2001, 2002, and 2003, we developed the "New Hires Database." To
create this database we used information drawn from FSI's Student
Training Management System (STMS) database and the Bureau of Human
Resources' Global Employment Management System (GEMS) database. The New
Hires Database contains information on the number of junior officers
with hard language ability hired in 2001, 2002, and 2003. It includes
their levels of proficiency--as rated by the FSI's School of Language
Studies--in those hard languages, additional foreign languages spoken
and their corresponding FSI rating of proficiency, A-100 class
information, and first--and in some cases second--tour assignment
information. In our analysis of new hires with hard language ability,
we included those officers who, at a minimum, possessed at least
rudimentary skills in speaking or reading difficult languages,
indicated by a score of 1 from FSI on these two dimensions (the FSI
scale ranges from a score of 0 to a score of 5, with 5 indicating
proficiency at the level of a native speaker). To determine the number
of new hires with working proficiency, we considered only those
officers with a level 2 or higher proficiency in both speaking and
reading and writing. To determine the percentage of new hires with hard
language ability in the population of new hires in fiscal years 2001
through 2003, we took the number of officers with hard language ability
from the New Hires Database in fiscal years 2001 through 2003 and
divided that number by the total number of Foreign Service generalists
hired during those years.
* To report the status of candidacy for individuals who had taken and
passed the Board of Examiners Telephonic Assessment (BEX) test in
fiscal year 2003, we developed the BEX Database. Categories in the
table include: number assigned to A-100, pending clearance; name on
foreign service register; no longer a junior officer candidate; and
total number of BEX Passers. To create this database we used
information from the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) School of Language
Study's Student Training Management System (STMS) database and the
Bureau of Human Resources' Global Employment Management System (GEMS)
and Automated Foreign Service Examination and Registry System (AFSERS)
database. The BEX Database contains individuals who passed the Foreign
Service's telephonic assessment in hard-to-learn languages and, where
applicable, their A-100 assignment information, and proficiency scores
according to FSI in hard languages as well as additional languages they
bring to the service. Names of individuals in the BEX Database for whom
there was no A-100 information were resubmitted to the State Department
to obtain their alternate outcomes. These individuals and their
alternate outcomes were subsequently recorded on a separate
spreadsheet. The alternate outcomes of these individuals were primarily
derived from the AFSERS database and the following categories:
expiration of eligibility dates, withdrawals, terminations, status on
the Foreign Service Register, status of medical and security
clearances, and employment start dates.
To examine assignment location for new hires with hard language ability
in fiscal year 2001, we used the New Hires Database to create three
distinct categories of junior officers for whom we had information on
two tours: (1) posted where hard language skills could be used, (2)
posted where other foreign language skills were used, and (3) posted
where other foreign language skills had to be acquired. To calculate
the percentage of junior officers in each of the three categories, we
divided the category total by the number of new hires with hard
language ability for whom information was available about two tours.
The total number for each category was defined as the number of those
officers being sent to hard language posts who had at least basic
speaking and writing skills in that language for the first category.
For the second category, we used the number of officers with hard
language skills assigned to a post where they could use other foreign
language skills they brought to the service, and for the third category
we used the number of officers assigned to posts during both their
first and second tours where they did not have the relevant foreign
language skills.
* We also used the New Hires Database to determine the number of junior
officers with hard language ability assigned to hard language posts
during their first tour for fiscal years 2001 through 2003. For each
fiscal year, we divided the number of officers hired in that fiscal
year and assigned to hard language posts during their first tour by the
total number of officers hired in that fiscal year.
In addition, we met with officials from all six of State's regional
bureaus and the Bureau of Consular Affairs; officials and junior
officers at the U.S. embassies in Moscow and Mexico City, as well as
junior officers at headquarters; and officials from the Office of
Recruitment, Examination, and Employment, the Office of Career
Development, and the Diplomatic Readiness Task Force. We reviewed State
Department recruitment data from the Diplomatic Readiness Task Force on
efforts to recruit Foreign Service officers with hard language skills
from the following targeted language schools: Brigham Young University,
Columbia University--Columbia College, Cornell University, Harvard
University, Indiana University--Bloomington, Middlebury College, Ohio
State University, University of California Los Angeles, University of
Chicago, University of Michigan--Ann Arbor, University of Washington,
University of Wisconsin--Madison, and Yale University. These data
showed the number of individuals from each of these universities who
had passed the Foreign Service written exam, but did not indicate
whether these individuals possessed any hard language skills or if they
were in fact even hired by the State Department.
We conducted our work from December 2002 through August 2003 in
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.
[End of section]
Appendix II: Comments from the Department of State:
United States Department of State:
Washington, D.C. 20520:
NOV 11 2003:
Dear Ms. Westin:
We appreciate the opportunity to review your draft report, "STATE
DEPARTMENT: Targets for Hiring, Filling Vacancies Overseas Being Met,
but Gaps Remain in Hard-to Learn Languages," GAO-04-139, GAO Job Code
320167.
The enclosed Department of State comments are provided for
incorporation with this letter as an appendix to the final report.
If you have any questions concerning this response, please contact
Laura Hall, Program officer, Office of Director General, Bureau of
Human Resources at: (202) 647-2665.
Signed by:
Joseph W. Bowab, Acting Assistant Secretary for Resource Management and
Chief Financial Officer:
Enclosure:
As stated.
cc: GAO/IAT - Jess Ford State/OIG - Luther Atkins State/DGHR - W.
Robert Pearson State/H - Paul Kelly:
Ms. Susan S. Westin, Managing Director, International Affairs and
Trade, U.S. General Accounting Office.
Department of State Comments on GAO Draft Report Targets for Hiring,
Filling Vacancies Overseas Being Met, but Gaps Remain in Hard-to-Learn
Languages (GAO-04-139, GAO Job Code 320167):
Thank you for allowing the Department the opportunity to comment on the
draft report "Targets for Hiring, Filling Vacancies Overseas Being Met,
but Gaps Remain in Hard-to-Learn Languages." The report addressed the
Department's processes for recruiting and hiring Foreign Service
generalists ("junior officers") to fulfill its staffing needs, and
focused on whether it is hiring and assigning junior officers with the
necessary skills to carry out foreign policy overseas. The report's
observations confirm that the Department's recruitment and hiring
processes are successfully working to attract, hire and assign junior
officers with the skills necessary to address our staffing needs at
post and that the Diplomatic Readiness Initiative is going a long way
towards addressing longstanding staffing gaps, especially at the mid
level.
The GAO analyzed our efforts to hire and assign junior officers with
the necessary skills to carry out U.S. foreign policy within the next
five to ten years. The report assessed our workforce planning, focusing
on our Overseas Staffing Model, and the Department's recruitment,
examination, training, and assignment processes. The GAO found that the
Department is targeting and hiring highly talented and capable Foreign
Service career officers who have the skills needed to perform their
jobs. The GAO also found that this process is conducted using a skills
assessment that is valid, a robust workforce planning process that
determines hiring needs, a dynamic recruiting program that targets
needed skills, an examination process that accurately evaluates
competency in those skills, and an assignment process that meets the
needs of posts and the expectations of Junior Officers.
The Department is pleased that the GAO reached these conclusions. The
Foreign Service recruitment, examination and employment process is
rigorous and continually evaluated. The skills needed to be a Foreign
Service Officer have been confirmed year after year and the
examinations' ability to assess for those skills has been validated
yearly. The report supports our contention that seeking candidates with
certain general skills, bringing
them in at the entry-level, and assigning them to a range of jobs over
a career is the best way to ensure that we meet our mission
requirements. Nearly all officials with whom GAO spoke said the
assignment process was effectively eliminating junior officer vacancies
and assigning junior officers with appropriate skills. Junior officers
were found to possess the broad intellectual and oral/writing skills
necessary for their jobs. Officials cited interpersonal skills as
particularly important and commented that the Department was
effectively hiring those with the ability and flexibility to lead and
work with others.
The GAO concluded that the Department is successfully meeting its
staffing needs through the Diplomatic Readiness Initiative. After years
of critical shortages, the Department is now hiring junior officers
above attrition and filling vacancies overseas. As the report notes, we
have successfully met our hiring targets for FY 2002 and 2003, and are
ready to implement FY 2004, depending on continued funding. We have
eliminated staffing deficits at all five career track entry levels and
we plan to eventually promote the junior officers at sufficient numbers
to eliminate the critical gap of mid-level officers. The report notes
that the mid-level gap will be eliminated within the next 9 to 10
years, based on attrition and hiring projections, provided that the
Department receives all DRI allocations through FY 2004.
The GAO stressed the importance of language fluency for officers, and
we agree that we must be able to meet the language proficiency levels
that posts deem necessary. The GAO recommended that we enhance efforts
to recruit and train foreign service officers in certain hard-to-learn
foreign languages, which the GAO defines as Russian, Mandarin Chinese,
Cantonese Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Arabic, which will be herein
referred to as `selected languages.' We agree that the use of these
selected languages are critical to certain positions. But we also
believe that the GAO's approach is too narrow. The GAO posits that
increasing the number of selected language speakers will address our
diplomatic readiness needs. We believe that while language skills are
critically important to certain positions, it would be a mistake to
regard them as the defining skill. As the GAO team concluded, the
Department's skills assessment produced valid results and the exam
based on those identified skills needed for a
career is resulting in the hiring of employees with those skills. It
is, relatively speaking, much easier to train a person with good
diplomatic skills to speak a language than it is to teach a linguist to
be a good diplomat. Our goal is to fully staff overseas posts with the
brightest officers who have the capacity and integrity required for
their responsibilities. We seek those who are motivated by service, who
are prepared for a career-long commitment, and who have the aptitude
for training in additional specific skills. In addition, we require
large numbers of language-qualified employees each year to serve in
posts where "world" languages (such as Spanish) are spoken; the GAO's
focus on six languages only is narrower than ours.
It is our expectation that language training of employees will remain
the main avenue by which we will meet the rigorous language training
demands of the foreign service. While there is room for improvement on
the recruitment side, it is not realistic to expect recruitment methods
to supplant training as the main avenue by which we achieve our very
ambitious language goals. The Department believes that the largest and
most significant factor limiting its ability to fill language-
designated positions is its long-standing staffing shortfall. The
Diplomatic Readiness Initiative is correcting this shortfall with the
goal of allowing additional training time for employees to learn
languages before each assignment. With increased staffing, the
Department has also been able to change its policy to allow certain
Junior Officers up to 44 weeks of language training versus 24 weeks
formerly. In addition, we note that the academic study of a language
does not necessarily mean the person is ready to conduct diplomacy; FSI
language training, unlike academic language training, is designed to
teach language skills tailored to the requirements of the job.
With regard to concerns about language requirement levels in certain
positions, with DRI and implementation of the language continuum, we
believe we can approach near complete staffing of the current language
designated positions (LDPs) with officers having the requisite
proficiency level within several more years. Additionally, it is our
intention actually to "raise the bar" with respect to target levels of
language proficiency to which we aspire. We have already reminded our
Chiefs of Mission overseas to look carefully at language-designated
positions in each mission; we have made a special appeal to them to
look within their management and consular sections to ensure that all
positions that would benefit from being encumbered by a language
proficient officer become language-designated. Historically, due to our
overall staffing deficits, missions were conservative about language-
designating positions, as doing so often increased the likelihood of
the position not being filled at all.
DRI is changing this equation.
We appreciate the GAO's review of assignments of JOs, including use of
preexisting language skills, and the positive conclusions. We believe
the results of the GAO's analysis demonstrate that in spite of all the
other considerations and logistical constraints, we do a good job of
using the skills of new hires. However, the GAO did not review
assignments beyond the first two tours. The Department hires for a
career, and anticipates that many skills possessed at entry will be
used throughout a career, not just in the first two tours. The
Department notes that we have already implemented efforts to maximize
the use of existing skills in future assignments where much of this
maximization will occur. In fact, if a new hire already possesses
strong language skills, the first two tours may be used by the employee
and the Department to develop additional skills rather than to use
existing ones.
The Career Development Officers who assign junior officers to overseas
posts stated that they are familiar with junior officers' background
and work experience and consider those factors when they make
assignments. The ultimate purpose of the assignment process is to meet
the needs of the Foreign Service and to prepare junior officers for
tenure. To be tenured, officers must reach required levels of
proficiency in foreign languages and demonstrate core competencies that
indicate their ability to serve successfully across the normal career
span of a Foreign Service Officer. These criteria guide junior
officers' assignments. Other factors such as tandem couple issues,
family medical and educational concerns, security issues and employee
career goals may affect an employee's bidding as well.
There are two additional factors to consider when officers are assigned
for their first and second tours. One is practical; one is
philosophical. On the practical side, not all posts are available for
people on their first and second tours. Much depends on the timing of
the opening
and the timing of the A-100 class or the subsequent bidding cycle for
second tours. For example, the Department has relatively few Japanese
and Korean speaking posts as compared to Russian, Arabic and Chinese
posts.
Philosophically, we strive to recruit Americans of all ethnicities. Our
goal is to reflect the face of America. We do not, however, force
employees into stereotyped roles. We do not automatically assign
African-Americans to Africa, Hispanic-Americans to Latin America, or
Chinese-Americans to China. An Hispanic-American may wish to make a
career in the Russian-speaking world, and we respect that view. Another
philosophical issue is the principle that we are generalists, rather
than single subject-matter experts. Because we are generalists, we are
able to deal with a rapidly-changing world; we had no Central Asia
experts when the Soviet Union broke up, but Foreign Service generalists
were able to establish effective diplomatic missions there immediately.
The Department is making considerable progress in recruiting for
language skills along with all other required skills. The Department
has bolstered efforts to recruit candidates with language skills and
developed a new "language continuum" plan to guide efforts to meet the
need for higher levels of competency in all languages, especially those
critical to national security concerns. The Department already has a
language incentive program that encourages acquisition and use of
critical languages. We provide extra credit for language skills in the
hiring process and neither we nor the GAO recommend making language
skills a requirement for hiring. We are currently planning to implement
a revision to this system whereby languages of critical national
security importance and shortage may receive more credit than other
"world" language skills.
With regards to the reference to another GAO report's recommendation
that the Department program adequate time for public diplomacy training
into State's assignment process, the Department is currently addressing
this issue. The GAO's review of Public Diplomacy - which was not
focused on junior officers - found that staffing shortfalls made it
difficult for PD officers to attend training. Since the number of mid-
level vacancies at post exceeds supply due to years of below attrition
hiring, there is tremendous pressure on officers to begin tours as soon
as possible.
The significant increase in Foreign Service officer staffing resulting
from the DRI will go far to alleviate this shortfall and allow officers
sufficient time to attend training.
The Department's three-year Diplomatic Readiness Initiative is
dramatically serving to remedy the shortfall by filling critical
requirements overseas and by creating a "personnel complement" or
"training float" that will allow staff sufficient time to receive
training not only in public diplomacy but in foreign languages and
other key skills while still having staff to meet day-to-day
requirements. With continued Congressional support, we will be able to
fully staff our overseas requirements and program adequate time for
training.
Additionally, the Department launched a new public diplomacy training
program in September 2003, increasing the number of weeks of available
public diplomacy training for public diplomacy officers (including
Junior Officers going to PD positions) from three weeks to as much as
19 weeks. The Department has also added public diplomacy components to
its training curriculum for certain officers outside the public
diplomacy cone, including economic and political officers, ambassadors,
and deputy chiefs of mission. None of this expanded training would be
possible without sustained hiring under the Diplomatic Readiness
Initiative and will not be sustainable without continued support to
maintain a robust "personnel complement" or "training float," even
while addressing emerging priorities.
Regarding the impact of rotational assignments on junior officers'
performance and managers' time, the GAO understates the contribution
that rotational assignments make toward accomplishing our mission
goals. The rotation process works to provide junior officers with the
broad career and managerial experiences necessary to make them
effective career-long foreign service officers. A proper breadth and
depth of rotation assignment ensures that the officers have the general
training and skills for them to become diplomats, managers, and
leaders. In addition, rotational opportunities can be an incentive to
bidding on otherwise hard-to-fill positions, including those requiring
lengthy language training.
We are currently working to ensure that junior officers are not placed
in positions where they bear an inappropriate amount of responsibility.
Many positions have been restructured, and the Department is working
closely with at post employees to ensure that the workload is
appropriate and tailored to the junior officer's abilities. We continue
to strive to allot the proper time and resources to address on-the-job
training. We believe that supervision is key - regardless of how long
junior officers spend in a section - to ensuring that junior officers
perform well. We recognize that increased responsibilities, combined
with mid-level staffing gaps, have made for stressful, demanding jobs
for mid-level supervisors. Due to years of below attrition hiring, we
are confronted with a gap of mid-level officers. Continued
congressional funding will serve to minimize the staffing shortfall.
With continued implementation of the DRI, we expect that the junior
officers will ultimately be promoted to supervisory positions and the
Department will have adequate numbers of mid-level officers to share
the workload of on-the-job training and supervision.
The Department is already addressing the GAO's recommendation to track
language recruitment efforts. Neither the Department nor GAO recommend
numerical targets, but the Department collects and maintains extensive
data to monitor and modify recruitment efforts and training programs.
Indeed, few activities are given as much attention or are as closely
watched as our recruitment, hiring, and training efforts. Given all the
factors influencing candidates, the range of outreach efforts, the
variety of skills tested, and the range of sources of language skilled
candidates, there is no certain way to predict the direct impact of
targeted recruitment on specific hiring results. The difficulties in
distinguishing between which outreach effort yielded which candidate
does not mean that the Department did not collect and analyze this
information.
Once again, we appreciate the opportunity to comment on the draft
provided to us.
The following are GAO's comments on the Department of State's letter
dated November 11, 2003.
GAO Comments:
1. State overstated our conclusions. The department wrote that "GAO
found that [State's] process is conducted using a skills assessment
that is valid, a robust workforce planning process that determines
hiring needs, a dynamic recruiting program that targets needed skills,
[and] an examination process that accurately evaluates competency in
those skills..." While we described State's workforce planning and
staffing processes, we did not validate its staffing model or its
skills assessment. Furthermore, we did not describe the workforce
planning process as "robust" and the recruiting program as "dynamic."
We reported that State used elements of workforce planning to determine
its Foreign Service staffing needs, junior officers stated that the
exam tested for the skills they used on the job, and State officials
believed the department was hiring and assigning junior officers
overseas with the skills they needed to do the job.
2. While we reported on State's processes for recruiting, hiring, and
assigning new staff, we did not conclude that these processes are the
best way to meet mission requirements. There may be other ways to
accomplish State's mission, but an evaluation of alternatives was
beyond the scope of this report.
3. We did not conclude that the department is successfully meeting its
staffing needs through the Diplomatic Readiness Initiative. We
concluded that State had met its hiring targets for Foreign Service
generalists in fiscal years 2002 and 2003. Also, State officials told
us that it would take 9 to 10 years to eliminate its mid-level staffing
gap. We did not assess whether this gap could be closed more quickly.
4. State mischaracterized what we wrote and thus did not address the
second part of our recommendation. State further commented that our
approach, which focused on six specific languages, was too narrow and
implied that we believe increasing the number of speakers of selected
languages will address diplomatic readiness needs. We focused on the
six languages because of their strategic importance and findings from
previous GAO reports that lack of staff proficient in these languages
hinders diplomatic readiness. Moreover, senior officials at the U.S.
embassy in Russia told us that some junior officers lacked sufficient
Russian skills to effectively do their jobs.
5. We are not suggesting that State supplant training as its main
avenue for achieving its language goals as State's comments infer.
However, we believe that State should explore as many avenues as
possible to eliminate its gaps in officers with proficiency in hard-to-
learn languages.
6. The intent of our analysis of the assignment of junior officers with
preexisting hard language skills was to show the extent to which those
officers were assigned to posts where they could use those skills. We
had no basis to conclude that the results were positive as State
commented. State also commented that we did not review officers'
assignments beyond their first two tours. We did not go beyond the
first two tours because the scope of our review was the recruitment and
assignment of junior officers. However, we have incorporated the
department's statements that many skills officers bring to the Foreign
Service will be used throughout their careers, not just in the first
two tours.
7. State wrote that the department is making considerable progress in
recruiting for language skills, along with all required skills.
However, as we have previously noted, State has not set numerical
targets for the number of individuals with hard language ability it
aims to hire. Moreover, the department does not maintain data to
demonstrate how many junior officers with hard language skills were
hired as a direct result of its outreach efforts.
8. State commented that we understated the contribution that rotational
assignments make toward accomplishing mission goals. We disagree. The
report provides several examples of the benefits of the rotations.
However, a number of officials raised the issue of increased
supervisory requirements as a concern.
9. State commented that it is already addressing the first part of our
recommendation that it maintain data on its efforts to recruit speakers
of hard-to-learn languages. As we noted in the report, State has not
used the data to determine whether its outreach efforts for increasing
the number of hard-language speakers are effective or have helped
decrease the gap in certain languages.
[End of section]
Appendix III: GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments:
GAO Contacts:
Cheryl Goodman, (202) 512-6571 La Verne Tharpes, (202) 512-5961:
Acknowledgments:
In addition to the persons named above, Kaya Taylor, Julia Roberts,
Martin de Alteriis, Monica Wolford, and Janey Cohen made key
contributions to this report.
(320167):
FOOTNOTES
[1] State defines diplomatic readiness as its "ability to get the right
people in the right place at the right time with the right skills to
carry out America's foreign policy."
[2] U.S. General Accounting Office, Foreign Languages: Human Capital
Approach Needed to Correct Staffing and Proficiency Shortfalls, GAO-02-
375 (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 31, 2002); and U.S. General Accounting
Office, State Department: Staffing Shortfalls and Ineffective
Assignment System Compromise Diplomatic Readiness at Hardship Posts,
GAO-02-626 (Washington, D.C.: June 18, 2002).
[3] This report covers Foreign Service generalists, who are officers
hired for broad-based skills to perform many types of jobs, rather than
Foreign Service specialists hired for a specific job.
[4] The five career tracks are management, consular, economic,
political, and public diplomacy.
[5] By general skills and competencies we mean the 13 job dimensions,
such as written and oral communication, information integration and
analysis, initiative, and leadership that State has identified as
important for Foreign Service officers to do their jobs.
[6] The State Department pays incentives to encourage people to pursue
the difficult languages that are used in posts that tend to have hard-
to-fill positions. All of the "incentive" languages fall into one of
two categories that State refers to as "hard and superhard" languages.
Among those incentive languages we looked at were Mandarin Chinese,
Arabic, Japanese, Korean, Russian, and Cantonese Chinese. This report
refers to those languages as "hard" languages.
[7] The Foreign Service career system has six levels. An officer may be
hired at FS 06, FS 05, or FS 04 depending on his or her level of work
experience, and progress through FS 01. The Senior Foreign Service
includes Minister Counselor (MC) and Counselor (OC). There is also the
rank of Career Minister above the ranks listed in the Senior Foreign
Service.
[8] The DRI does not include additional consular positions.
[9] State generally does not hire Foreign Service generalists at the
mid level because such hiring has not been effective, according to
State officials.
[10] See GAO-02-375, GAO-02-626, and U.S. General Accounting Office,
U.S. Public Diplomacy: State Department Expands Efforts but Faces
Significant Challenges, GAO-03-951 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 4, 2003).
[11] While additional time and resources are needed to move an officer
to the third level of proficiency, U.S. government research has shown
that a level-3 speaker is up to four times as productive as a speaker
at level 2. See GAO-02-375.
[12] GAO-03-951.
[13] GAO-02-375.
[14] GAO-02-626.
[15] State does identify foreign language training needs each year and
uses the results to determine language training capacity required as
well as the size of the training float needed to attain it.
[16] In our analysis of new hires with hard language ability, we
included those officers who, at a minimum, possessed rudimentary skills
in speaking or reading difficult languages, those who spoke or read at
the level of a native speaker, and all those who fell somewhere in
between these two categories.
[17] We used level 2 and above because that is the target of the
department's re-invigorated outreach efforts for officers with foreign
language skills, according to a State official.
[18] Mandarin Chinese, Arabic, Japanese, Korean, Russian, and Cantonese
Chinese.
[19] Placement on the list of eligible hires for the Foreign Service
register does not mean that a job offer will be made. Candidates may
wait on the register until their eligibility expires or they may be
called to serve before it expires, depending on the Service's needs.
[20] A tour generally lasts 2 years.
[21] This analysis includes all those officers who, at a minimum,
possessed at least rudimentary skills in speaking or writing difficult
languages, indicated by a score of 1 from FSI.
[22] GAO-03-951.
[23] U.S. Department of State, Office of Inspector General, Office of
Inspections, Report of Inspection: Bureau of African Affairs, Report
No. ISP-I-02-52 (Washington, D.C.: September 2002).
[24] U.S. Department of State, Office of Inspector General, Review of
Nonimmigrant Visa Issuance Policy and Procedures, Report No. ISP-I-03-
26 (Washington, D.C.: December 2002).
[25] We did not assess the validity of the staffing model.
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